Assistant Professor, Political Science & Health, Aging and Society
Member, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis

Martin Hering, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Health, Aging and Society, and a Member of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University. He studies the development of welfare states and the politics of welfare state reform, and is particularly interested in analysing stability and change in the two largest social programs in advanced industrialized countries: health care and pensions. He seeks to understand why health care systems are more resistant to fundamental change than pension systems, how policy-makers’ ideas about health care shape policy alternatives, and how political parties and electoral competition facilitate or constrain health care reforms. His current research focuses on policy drift in the Canadian health care system and on policy initiatives of provincial governments that either reinforce or reduce inequities in health care utilization.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Path-dependence and development of health care systems
• Politics of health policy-making
• Party competition and collusion in health care reform
• Stability and change of health policy paradigms

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Hering, Martin. Welfare State Restructuring without Grand Coalitions: The Role of Informal Cooperation in Blame Avoidance". German Politics 17 (2), 2008. Pp. 165-183.

Hering Martin, Kpessa Michael. The Integration of Occupational Pension Regulations: Lessons for Canada, Program for Research on Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population (SEDAP) Research Paper 188 (2007).

Hering, Martin. Turning Ideas into Policies: Implementing Modern Social Democratic Thinking in Germany's Pension Policy.  In Giuliano Bonoli and Martin Powell, eds. Social Democratic Party Policies in Europe. London: Routledge.  2004.  Pp. 102-122.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

• Social Policy Transformations
• Politics of Public Policy
• Social Policy in an Aging Population